Seward's merchants organized an Easter-egg hunt every year for the local kids. The hunt took place on the Saturday before Easter and on and around the fairgrounds. Many hundreds of colored eggs were hidden in the grass and among various objects. On each egg was written the name of a merchant and a money amount. The amounts varied from a nickel to a quarter.
The hunt areas were divided into age groups. I think there were about three areas -- something like ages 1-5, 6-8, and 9 and above. The eggs were easier to find for the younger kids and harder to find for the older kids.
All the kids would line up at the edge of their area at the start time on Saturday, and then then kids were told "ready, set, go" and they started running through their area and finding the eggs.
Afterwards the kids went around to the merchants and showed their eggs and got the amount of money that was written on the egg. The merchants did not keep the eggs, but they marked them to show that they had been redeemed.
Besides being a good thing to do, the hunt served the purpose of advertisement and public relations for the parents, who often drove their kids around to the merchants to collect the money.
Afterwards we kids gorged on the eggs. Mark Klammer showed me how to kill the egg taste by pouring lots (LOTS!!) of salt on each egg. To this day, whenever I eat a hard-boiled egg, I still pour some salt on it first.
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